CO Proposed Changes for 2020

[HondoArcher]

Hey guys & gals,

You all need to add your voice to what changes are being proposed to the hunting seasons. There are several proposals for archery season. Mostly they want to reduce the hunting pressure by reducing season or make it draw only. This will suck big time.

This is a news article about it:
https://the-journal.com/articles/124620

Here is the page that has all of the links:
https://cpw.state.co.us/thingstodo/Pages/SeasonStructure.aspx

Attached are the proposed changes.

Thanks, Hondo

 

[jolemons]

It has my support. Increase revenue with higher prices and reduce tag numbers to help with hunting pressure and hunt quality, while also improving elk recruitment.

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[BigAntlerGetter]

The CBA (Colorado Bowhunters Association) is trying to put in a 5th alternative that severely cuts down non resident opportunities as well, but not sure if it will be on there.

Personally I understand them wanting to cut down on over crowding ect, but I looked at this from three points 1) a wildlife conservation 2) a hunter/sportsman and 3) an outfitter. I put my opinion as an outfitter last cause it’s not all about money to me.

Personally, I believe the wildlife comes first, their conservation is most important, second I believe everyone whether resident or non resident deserves the opportunity to hunt Colorado. We shouldn’t be pushing them out because they live somewhere else, I wouldn’t want them doing it to me if I ever wanted to hunt out east or another western state. I truly believe having an early rifle bull season would be detrimental to the herds, I think they need that few weeks between archery and first rifle to recover, finish breeding and have some relaxation. The archery season imo is pretty well set I like the setup and believe changing certain units to help conservation is a smart idea. As they did in eagle county. I always hated having to wait a week during archery to start hunting bears, I think run those season in tune with each other cause I always see bears the first week of archery and have to hold off. I can’t exactly remember how exactly I “voted” but it was pretty close to keeping the season structure the same. I think the only change I really thought was good was cutting 3rd rifle down to 5 days and giving more time between hunting seasons (helps me out as an outfitter to get things fixed and moved around between seasons)

That’s my opinion and I know my opinion still has flaws but there isn’t a wrong answer for the questionnaire and however it comes about is what we will have to deal with for 5 years.


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[dirtytough]

My personal thoughts are its almost impossible to actually manage game with OTC hunting. One year you can have 100 hunters hunt a unit and the next 500. On the other hand it doesn't make sense to limit archery but not rifle.

 

[Josh Wright]

I wonder if making archery draw only, if it would reduce point creep?

 

[tdhanses]

I found this interesting

CPW itself is largely funded by the money made off hunting licenses. In fiscal year 2016-2017, CPW’s total revenue was $241.9 million. Of that amount, $6.5 million came from 158,000 in-state residents buying hunting tags. A total of 70,400 out-of-state tags generated $40.3 million

 

[blackdawg]

I found this interesting

CPW itself is largely funded by the money made off hunting licenses. In fiscal year 2016-2017, CPW’s total revenue was $241.9 million. Of that amount, $6.5 million came from 158,000 in-state residents buying hunting tags. A total of 70,400 out-of-state tags generated $40.3 million

How much did all the parks generate?



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[tdhanses]

How much did all the parks generate?



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Article didn’t say but out of $241 million, only $47 million were from hunting tags, so something is bringing in the cash outside of hunting.

 

[tdhanses]

I wish they would make the bear special rifle season open from Sep 2 - Dec 2. No reason to limit this and give people more time to control these guys.

 

[treedagain]

i like the new early rifle proposal....

 

[shotgunwilly]

The parks department was in the hole every year until the merger, now they are awash in wildlife cash.

 

[sneaky]

Article didn’t say but out of $241 million, only $47 million were from hunting tags, so something is bringing in the cash outside of hunting.

That's just from tag sales, not license sales overall.

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[sneaky]

Funny, they think archers are hurting elk in SW CO, but they propose an early rifle season which will hammer bulls when they are still rutting. One of the dumbest things I've read in a while concerning regulations.

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[Mosby]

I am certainly not an expert on what is good for the elk and deer herds and my views are probably over simplistic. But IMO, if more states would make out of state elk and deer tags more available, it wouldn't funnel all of the out of state hunters on those few states they can still get tags, like Colorado. IMO, the over crowding in Colorado and Idaho is ultimately being caused by other states where it is all but impossible to get an out of state tag to hunt on federal land, unless you hire an outfitter. It would seem that the elk herd across the region would be much better off if the hunting opportunity was more equally distributed among the western states.

Now that my kids are grown, I have given thought to leaving my wife and moving out west for residency, just to ensure I can get tags in the future. Would I rather spend the last years of my life married or elk hunting? These are choices a man should not have to make.

 

[tdhanses]

Funny, they think archers are hurting elk in SW CO, but they propose an early rifle season which will hammer bulls when they are still rutting. One of the dumbest things I've read in a while concerning regulations.

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While I agree, wonder if they are thinking if they give out a very limited number of these tags in each unit, could that stop point creep or could it get some of these guys with 20+ points to use them.

 

[sneaky]

While I agree, wonder if they are thinking if they give out a very limited number of these tags in each unit, could that stop point creep or could it get some of these guys with 20+ points to use them.

Not sure, it'll be a short term fix if any, because then guys will be applying for it and driving point creep through the roof til it's back to where it is now. No easy fix but to think that archers are what is hurting elk numbers is laughable at best. All you have to do is compare success rates from rifle to archery and it becomes apparent that archers aren't the ones affecting elk population numbers.

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[sneaky]

While I agree, wonder if they are thinking if they give out a very limited number of these tags in each unit, could that stop point creep or could it get some of these guys with 20+ points to use them.

You thinking they may adopt Utah's model? We've seen how successful that is in hunter opportunity (sarcasm for those who aren't tracking)

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[BigAntlerGetter]

Not sure, it'll be a short term fix if any, because then guys will be applying for it and driving point creep through the roof til it's back to where it is now. No easy fix but to think that archers are what is hurting elk numbers is laughable at best. All you have to do is compare success rates from rifle to archery and it becomes apparent that archers aren't the ones affecting elk population numbers.

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Average 11% success in archery to average 28.25% for rifle seasons (1-4 no PLO). 50,750 bow hunters killed 5,582 Elk. 132,965 rifle hunters at 28.25% killed 37,562 Elk. If you took the rifle hunters and divided it by 2.62 (which would put it to 50,750 hunters to match archery) and at 28.25% success, rifle hunters kill 14,336 elk Per 50,750 hunters.

Edited with correct math, numbers weren’t making sense in my head after I reread it and realized you can cut the hunters down but the percentage would still be the same. So yes Rifle hunters kill 3X more elk than archery hunters do. But when you come down to OTC tags for archery and OTC tags for Rifle season they’re is actually not a huge difference, the tags that are the most filled are 1st and 4th either sex Rifle and 2nd and 3rd cow (Draw tags) when factorin on OTC Bull tags for 2nd and 3rd Rifle they are very similar to OTC Archery. Which is one of the biggest concerns for most people is what to do with the OTC Archery and rifle tags.


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[Felix40]

Average 11% success in archery to average 28.25% for rifle seasons (1-4 no PLO). 50,750 bow hunters killed 5,582 Elk. 132,965 rifle hunters at 28.25% killed 37,562 Elk. If you took the rifle hunters and divided it by 2.62 (which would put it to 50,750 hunters to match archery) and divided the percent success to match you get 10.78% which would actually prove that archery hunters by the numbers are actually higher success than rifle... but .22% isn’t a whole lot, so I’d say they are actually about even and equal in value.


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That math does not work.

Rifle hunters are a legitimate management tool. Archery hunters are not so much. Them wanting to add early season rifle hunt is like saying they want more elk killed. That’s the opposite message they send when they talk about limiting archery hunters

I think a cool way to help some of the issues is to just add all the OTC units to the draw as list a tags. It’s just too easy to hunt and gain a point every year right now. I also tend to think pressure will be self regulating since people don’t want to hunt on top of each other. I can’t see a reason to lock people into a single unit.

 

[sneaky]

Average 11% success in archery to average 28.25% for rifle seasons (1-4 no PLO). 50,750 bow hunters killed 5,582 Elk. 132,965 rifle hunters at 28.25% killed 37,562 Elk. If you took the rifle hunters and divided it by 2.62 (which would put it to 50,750 hunters to match archery) and divided the percent success to match you get 10.78% which would actually prove that archery hunters by the numbers are actually higher success than rifle... but .22% isn’t a whole lot, so I’d say they are actually about even and equal in value.


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If my aunt had balls she'd be my uncle too. Lots of "ifs" in that. Proof you can twist numbers to fit your agenda. If you multiplied archery hunters by 2.62 to get 132,965 hunters at 11% success rate you get 14,626 elk killed. Same number of rifle hunters kill 37,562 elk.

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